Jordan J. Ballor (Dr. theol., University of Zurich; Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary) is director of research at the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy, an initiative of the First Liberty Institute. He has previously held research positions at the Acton Institute and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and has authored multiple books, including a forthcoming introduction to the public theology of Abraham Kuyper. Working with Lexham Press, he served as a general editor for the 12 volume Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology series, and his research can be found in publications including Journal of Markets & Morality, Journal of Religion, Scottish Journal of Theology, Reformation & Renaissance Review, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Faith & Economics, and Calvin Theological Journal. He is also associate director of the Junius Institute for Digital Reformation Research at Calvin Theological Seminary and the Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity & Politics at Calvin University.
Posts by Jordan J. Ballor
June 26, 2024
In a fascinating essay at
Jacobin, Orthodox theologian, Bible translator, and polemicist David Bentley Hart engages the teachings of Jesus, the apostles, and the early church on wealth and poverty.
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August 08, 2023
It has taken some time but there are signs that the cultural elites, members of what has been called America’s “ruling class,” have started to engage in some long overdue self-examination as it relates to their engagement with populist dynamics, especially as represented in the figure of Donald Trump.
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January 12, 2023
The point of departure for
Protestant Social Teaching: An Introduction is an observation set forth by Stephen J. Grabill in the pages of the
Journal of Markets & Morality: “Neither magisterial Protestants nor evangelicals have a theologically unified body of social teaching.”
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March 16, 2021
For all the claims regarding the subjectivity of economics, including schools of thought that emphasize subjective value theory and the descriptive rather than the normative, much mainstream economic thought focuses on what seems to be objective and measurable.
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March 05, 2021
As the end of the COVID-19 pandemic is in sight and we see some hope on the horizon, politicians in our nation’s capital are considering significant proposals to address the crises of the working poor and child poverty.
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March 04, 2021
Recent policy debates over direct cash grants to parents from the federal government expose our society’s dysfunctional attitudes toward work and parenting. Over at the
Detroit News, I have some thoughts and (mostly) concerns.
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February 17, 2021
What distinguishes something that is truly creative from something that is simply innovative? And how do we value and prioritize one or the other? In a recent study, “Creativity, Innovation, and the Historicity of Entrepreneurship,” Victor Claar and I attempt to disambiguate what we call “creative entrepreneurship” from “innovative entrepreneurship.”
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February 10, 2021
Some years back, I helped put together a small, edited volume intended as a primer on some of the ways in which the relationship between the church and political life has, and ought to be, understood.
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November 04, 2020
I was honored to be a guest on the
Faithful Economics podcast, sponsored by the Association of Christian Economists (which also publishes the journal
Faith & Economics). I joined host Steven McMullen of Hope College to talk about the dialogue between theology and economics.
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June 05, 2020
I was a guest on the Working Man podcast this week, discussing the connections between the Dutch theologian and statesman Abraham Kuyper and Pope Leo XIII. In 1891 both Leo and Kuyper published important documents providing Christian reflection on the “social question.”
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